Alesha, Who Rescues The Dead

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Sister Katrei
Posts: 7
Joined: 4 years ago
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Post by Sister Katrei » 4 years ago

This is my oldest Commander deck that has gone through various stages and forms. As of now, it is in the stage I would call nearly-optimised. Our group is not hyper-competitive, but I would still like to keep improving the deck - exactly: optimising.

The central point of the deck is utilising Alesha's ability to bring back creatures with power 2>. The deck started long time ago with me throwing in basically all creatures with that power and at the same time strong ETB abilities. The deck had originally a bit of a token sub-theme (thanks to cards like Pia and Kiran Nalaar or Ponyback Brigade) and +1/+1 counter subtheme (thanks to cards like Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and Dragonscale General).

I think I'm standing at the crossroads if I want to continue making the deck more focussed. One option I see is to continue expanding the idea that Alesha is essentially "tutoring" into the battlefield creatures that have various utility effects, and to play this deck as a control of sorts. The basic idea would be to draw and discard creatures with stuff like Tormenting Voice and Cathartic Reunion in the beginning, then cast Alesha and continue attacking with her every turn (using maybe stuff like Reconnaissance to make sure I can), pulling whatever is needed at the time (need to get rid of an enchantment - pull Monk Realist, need to get rid of opponent's graveyard - pull Agent of Erebos etc.).

This probably means getting rid of some of the "good" creatures (meaning things like Noosegraf Mob where the main point is that they are normally higher CMC, but with Alesha, I can pull them for two mana anytime. It also likely means cutting some of the token-makers and/or +1/+1 counter-givers. Am I right in this assumption? If yes, which ones should I cut, and for what?

Otherwise, the basic criteria for improving my deck are:
  1. First and foremost, the card has to look good and seem like it fits flavourfully. "Looking good" is subjective and I shall policy it myself, but the flavour should gravitate towards things like Tarkir, the "Mardu values", warriors, raiders, bravery, plus (heroic?) descent into the underworld, liberating prisoners, that kind of stuff (the deck has had this idea in it since forever, and sadly, even though Theros Beyond Death has literally the same theme, I haven't found thus far any cards that looked like I wanted to include them). It is, of course, all negotiable - but flavour ultimately goes above all else. If I have the choice between strictly better and strictly worse version of the same card, and the strictly worse happens to be a Mardu warrior and the strictly better is a Phyrexian zombie, I opt for the Mardu warrior.
  2. My victory should be because of Alesha and I want people to clearly see it. The main thing should be the utilisation of 2> power rule on Alesha, and the use of her ability every turn. I don't want infinite combos and stuff, unless they happen "naturally". I also prefer interaction to non-interaction. Alesha should be the core of the deck, so no, I don't want to Demonic Tutor for Sun Titan and then win. Stuff like Reveillark can serve as backup if someone keeps killing Alesha, but that's already an exception made because it only extends the existing main "win-con".
  3. The power level of this deck should be "sensible", i.e. I am not putting in things just because they are powerful (see 2, and also see 4).
  4. The price level among my playgroup is that people tend to have majority of cards costing below 5-7€/$, give or take. We basically don't buy cards worth more than ~10, unless it is something really really really necessary. Each of us has several more expensive cards, but these are cards we opened/have owned for a long time. In other words, I am not buying a Mox or even more fetchlands.
Alesha, Who Controls the Board

Commander (1)

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